14/04/2018 Wounding and the will to live - Astrodienst

Wounding and the Will to Live

by Liz Greene
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Apollon, August 1999

The Centre for Psychological Astrology CPA offers all six issues of the journal "Apollon" for free.
Visit www.cpalondon.com to download the PDF files.

Since Chiron's discovery in 1977, astrologers have been experiencing and exploring his themes, listening to
new tales that resound to his ancient myth, and coming to some understanding of his archetypal impact. Now,
over twenty years later, Liz Greene sees Chiron as essential in deepening our understanding of solar
consciousness; for in order to choose to live life to the full, we have to face that part in us that would rather seek
death.

The will to live is a great mystery. Every medical practitioner, with any experience of life-threatening illness,
knows that the will to live can affect physical as well as psychological well-being, and survival often depends
upon the sick person's desire for life, rather than on the doctor's ministrations. Nor is the will to live necessarily
what we claim we feel. We may cry out that we want life; but somewhere inside, we want to go home, and this
longing for oblivion may be more powerful than any conscious declaration of intent to "get better". Some people
react to conflict, pain and disappointment with a creative response that transforms their perspective and even
their circumstances. Other people become bitter and hopeless and live in a grey twilight world, or entirely lose
their will to live. There are not only active suicides amongst those who have inwardly given up, but also those
self-architected "accidental" deaths which, although unconscious, are nevertheless fuelled by a powerful
yearning to bring an end to suffering and unhappiness. Self-destructive behaviour does not always involve the
obvious gesture of the bottle of pills or the knife slash to the wrist. There is no easy formula to determine why
some individuals rise to life's challenges, despite severe misfortunes and handicaps, while others turn their
backs on the future, even if fortune favours them. Moreover, loss of the will to live may not always result in self-
destruction. It may be expressed as the urge to destroy others, as though, on some deep and inaccessible
level, the projection of hopelessness and victimisation onto another gives the suffering individual the illusion that
he or she is strong and in control of life. Thus the individual who has, secretly, lost the will to live may, in
extremis, try to deprive others of joy -and perhaps even of life - by finding a scapegoat who can be burdened
with all the despair that is felt within.

This mystery may have its origin, as so many mysteries do, in the enigma of inherent individual character, and
the birth chart can provide us with many insights into the patterns which underpin that character. With any
polarity in life, we, as astrologers, always need to look at a polarity of planets; and the polarity of hope versus
despair, the will to live versus hopelessness, may be illuminated - at least in part - through the symbolism of the
polarity of the Sun and Chiron.

I do not believe we can really understand either of these planets without considering the meaning of the other
one. Although they are not in actual aspect in every individual's chart, nevertheless they are both present in
every chart, and they form an energy dynamic within the personality. A direct aspect sharpens this dynamic and
often becomes the focus of the individual's journey, but the polarity exists in each of us regardless. All the
planets, up to and including Saturn, serve the development of the individual ego, best symbolised by the Sun
itself; in fact, we might even say that the personal planets "serve" the Sun as the centre of individuality. But
Chiron lies at the interface between Saturn and the outer planets, and therefore mediates collective issues
which impinge on and wound the individual. By its nature, Chiron's collective implications signify something
collectively "unhealable", because the wound exists in the collective and is ancestral. By its nature, the Sun
reflects each individual's sense of purpose and meaning in life, and these are intimately bound up with the will to
live and to become oneself. Each of these planets needs the other; but if the balance tips too far to one or the
other, certain psychological difficulties may ensue.

Following are a list of "keywords" which may be helpful in understanding the relationship between the Sun and
Chiron. I would like to explore these in more detail first, and then look at what can happen when the Sun works
against Chiron, and what can happen when they work together. After this brief assessment of the two planets,
an example chart may help to illustrate the mysterious dynamic between the Sun and Chiron.

Key Themes

The Sun Chiron

Individual destiny Collective failings and flaws
Sense of meaning Disillusionment
Hope for the future Failed ideals
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Self-confidence Inescapable wounding

Generosity Bitterness and cynicism
Individual identity apart from family and collective Physical and psychological damage
The power to create Acceptance of mortal limits
The ability to play Quest for understanding
The divine child Compassion
The Sun working against Chiron The Sun working with Chiron
Depression Wisdom
Loss of confidence Patience in the face of that which cannot be changed
Sense of permanent damage Toughness and grit
Cynicism Understanding of deeper patterns
Expectation of failure Melancholy which leads to depth of thought and feeling
Sense of victimisation or scapegoating Determination to make a contribution to the welfare of
Desire to victimise or scapegoat others others
Projection of inferiority on others Compassion
Loss of the will to live Feelings of specialness tempered by an acceptance of
human limits
Activation of the will to live

The meaning of the Sun

I will not spend too much time on describing the meaning of the Sun, as I have done this elsewhere. In short,
the Sun represents the essence of the living individual - godhead (or, if a less "spiritual" term is preferred, the
life force) incarnated in human form for a particular lifespan, and expressing itself with a specific nature and
purpose. Through the Sun we experience ourselves as unique, special, and born with something to contribute to
life. To paraphrase a statement Charles Harvey once made in a conference lecture, the Sun within us makes us
feel connected with the macrocosm, and we experience ourselves as part of something eternal. This inner
experience conveys, not "happiness" in the ordinary colloquial sense, but the profound serenity and
hopefulness which arise from a feeling of living a useful and meaningful life. We could call this an experience of
"individual destiny", because the Sun reflects that in us which knows we are here to live a specific purpose.
Apollo was, in Greek myth, the deity who dispelled the darkness of the family curse, and freed the individual
from the burden of ancestral "sin". A sense of individual meaning and purpose can indeed free us from the
feeling of entrapment in the family past. The Sun also gives us a sense of an individual future, a faith in our
purpose, and an inner conviction that we are "going somewhere". It is the Sun which allows us to fight free of
feelings of futility and pointlessness, and which affirms our unique value even if our circumstances are painful.

The inner experience of individual destiny, meaning and hope, in turn, gives us confidence in ourselves and a
belief in the essential goodness of life, and this can be a powerful healing force on both physical and
psychological levels. If the expression of the Sun is blocked, stifled, or undeveloped for any reason - through
childhood wounds, for example, or through internal conflicts reflected in the birth chart - the individual may find it
more difficult to connect with this sense of having the right to be alive as oneself. Life's difficulties may then be
amplified because there is no inner sense of specialness and hope on which to draw. The power to create
depends on the Sun in the chart, because when we create anything we give ourselves over to something
"other" inside us which we trust will bring fourth fruit. Creativity requires an act of trust. So too does play, where
we give ourselves over to a flow of imaginative power which makes us feel joyful. The most ancient symbol of
this creative and playful solar power is the image of the divine child, which personifies something eternally
youthful and indestructible within us.

The meaning of Chiron

In Greco-Roman art, Chiron is almost always shown carrying a child on his back. But despite this emblem of
hope, the figure of the King of the Centaurs is a tragic one. It is worth reiterating the myth, which is often
distorted or wrongly told because it is such a painful one.

In myth, Chiron did not become a healer because he was wounded. That is an optimistic reinterpretation which
attempts to make sense of life's pain by assigning it a specific purpose and meaning - to develop the
compassion and wisdom to heal others because of one's own pain. This reinterpretation of the myth is valid as a
way of working with one's own wounds. But Chiron's pain serves no such noble purpose in the story. He is
already a teacher and a healer, before he is wounded. It could be assumed that he is already wounded because
he suffers isolation; although he is a Centaur, and therefore one of a tribe of creatures who symbolise natural
instinctual powers, he is himself civilised, and has thus separated himself from his tribe. Chiron in this context
represents the wise animal, a natural power which of its own volition has chosen to serve human evolution and
consciousness, rather than remain blindly subject to the instinctual compulsions of the animal kingdom. Like the

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"helpful animal" in fairy tales, Chiron turns his back on the savagery of his instinctual nature, in order to serve
the evolutionary pattern which he deems to be the way forward for the whole of life.

But Chiron is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is caught between Herakles, the solar hero who
personifies the strength of the human ego, and the wild, untamed Centaurs whom Chiron himself has left
behind. While the battle rages, Chiron takes no part; he has sympathy for both. Perhaps because of this
mediating role, which deprives him of his natural aggression, he is accidentally wounded by a poisoned arrow
aimed at another Centaur, and the wound does not heal, no matter what healing methods he applies to it.
Ultimately he retires to his cave howling in anguish, begging for death. Zeus and Prometheus take pity on him,
and grant him the boon of mortality, allowing him to die in peace like any mortal, although once he was a god.

This terrible story implies a state of unfairness in life which is hard for any individual, and perhaps even harder
for the idealistic individual involved in studies such as astrology, to countenance. We want to believe that life is
fair, and that goodness is rewarded and evil punished, at least in some other incarnation if not in this one. Here
is a good creature who suffers through no fault of his own, a victim of the inevitable battle between evolution
and inertia, consciousness and blind instinctuality. Chiron is an image of that in us which has been wounded
unfairly by life, and by inescapable conditions which reflect failings and flaws in a collective psyche which is
unfailingly clumsy in its efforts to progress. Because human beings are both solar hero and wild animal, and
because our efforts to civilise ourselves over history have so often produced disastrous results, we have a
legacy of unfairly inflicted pain which produces repercussions through the generations. Physical and
psychological damage whose causes lie, not in any individual or even parental failing, but in genetic inheritance,
or collective disasters such as the Holocaust and the present nightmare in Kosovo, belong to the realm of
Chiron. In these spheres our individual strivings, fired by the Sun, refined and focused by the inner planets, and
given form and strength by Saturn, are thwarted or damaged by forces in life, in history, in society, and in the
collective psyche over which we have no control and for which, as individuals, we cannot be blamed.

Such collisions with the inescapable flaws of the collective can leave us full of bitterness and cynicism. We may
punish others because we feel maimed, wounded and irredeemable. Or we may punish ourselves. But if we can
progress beyond this black bile of bitterness, and if we are persistent enough in our search for answers, we may
indeed find an answer - even if the answer is that there is no answer, and that we must accept the limits of
mortal existence. Acceptance is one of Chiron's gifts, and it is different from self-pitying resignation. Chiron's
boon of death may be understood as a symbol of the acceptance of being mortal, and it constitutes a
transformation which, even if it cannot heal the unhealable or alter the past, can radically change our
perspective on life. Through it we learn compassion, albeit of a limited kind. Chiron's compassion is the
compassion of one lame person for another. We may feel deep empathy for those who are wounded like
ourselves. But without the Sun's warmth and light, we may not find the generosity to move beyond the narrow
circle of those whose specific pain mirrors our own, and see that life hurts us all, in one way or another.

Chiron as scapegoater: the wounded becomes the wounder

There are many stages in the process which Chiron represents, beginning with his wounding, and ending with
his transformation into mortality and his release from suffering. These stages encompass rage, fury, the desire
to injure others, bitter resignation, self-pity, feelings of victimisation, and, at last, the dawning of a wish to
understand the universal patterns that lie beyond one's personal pain. At any of these stages, if we fail to face
and comprehend what is happening to us, we may become stuck and act out some of Chiron's less attractive
features. Chiron is, after all, wounded in his animal half, and animals are not known for their philosphical attitude
when injured. Those which have the strength tend to bite back.

As it is so relevant to the present world situation, I have chosen to briefly review the relationship between the
Sun and Chiron in the chart of Slobodan Milosevic, who, at the time of writing this article, bears the dubious
honour of personifying all we find most abhorrent in human nature. Not long ago, Adolf Hitler had this honour;
no doubt others, equally qualified, will follow in the future. Whether or not Milosevic is truly evil as some claim,
or a human being damaged unbearably and thus transformed into a destructive force, is not a question I can
answer. This question forms the subject of endless debate in the healing professions, and raises the impossible
conundrum of whether the will to destroy is a matter of inherent character or a matter of childhood damage
taken to appalling extremes. As with all such conundrums, the answer probably lies in a combination of both.
But it seems to me, viewing this chart in the context of the present situation in Yugoslavia, that we can learn a
great deal from it about what happens if the wounds of Chiron are not dealt with on an inner level. Milosevic has
exhibited no obvious loss of the will to live. He is, apparently, quite the opposite: a tough survivor who will find
any way to retain his position of power whatever the cost to others. It is others who, at his hands, have lost not
only the will to live, but their actual lives. Yet the inner picture is rather different.

Slobodan Milosevic
Aug 20 1941, 22.00 MET
Pozarevac, Yugoslavia

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Source: Hans Hinrich Taeger, Internationales

Horoscope Lexikon, Band 4, Verlag Hermann Bauer,
Freiburg im Breisgau, 1998. Taeger classes this chart
as Group 2P, meaning it is fairly reliable and derived
from autobiographical statements.

Enlarge Horoscope

In this chart Chiron is not aspecting the Sun. It is, however, powerful through its conjunctions with the Moon and
Pluto in Leo; all these planets are placed in the 4th house and square the Taurus Ascendant. The Sun is in the
5th house, in its own sign of Leo, and is therefore the dispositor of Chiron. The dynamic relationship between
the Sun and Chiron in this birth chart is not through direct aspect, but through the polarisation of the self-
expressive, self-mythologising 5th house Sun in Leo and the shadowed, injured Moon in the 4th, with its
inheritance not only of death and destruction in the immediate family, but also of the ancient memory of
grievances in the collective psyche into which Milosevic was born. Many Serbs nurse a centuries-old anger
toward the Muslim world because of the occupation of their land by the Ottoman Turks in the 13th century. The
Muslim Albanian community is perceived as merely a continuation of this ancient outrage. 4th house Moons feel
such things personally, as though they have ingested these archaic memories through their mothers' milk.

The oppression of Tito's communist regime is also relevant here, with its repudiation of Leonine individuality.
Milosevic himself is, of course, a communist, and the only outlet for a double Leo with such a political agenda is
power. But although power might satisfy the Sun's drive to create, it cannot heal the hurt of the Moon in Leo,
longing to be special and loved. This individual, with no water in the birth chart and the harsh internal discipline
of a Saturn-Uranus conjunction square the Sun and Mercury, is not likely to recognise or acknowledge the
source of his suffering, because any emotions, especially those of the vulnerable victim, are frightening. One
does not survive if one feels. One survives if one fights; the Sun is trine a dignified Mars in Aries in the 12th,
itself a channel for a dream of collective ancestral heroism. The Pluto-Chiron power which injures the Moon is
perceived outside, in a vulnerable people who are seen as a powerful enemy. As always when one projects bits
of oneself outside, Milosevic lives in a hall of mirrors.

Analysing the motives of an individual like Milosevic can teach us a great deal about ourselves. It is, of course,
easy, with hindsight, to say, "Ah, naturally he behaved like this, because his whatnot is in thingey aspecting
ding-ding." This is a game all astrologers play, especially when it allows us to feel superior. However, the
conjunction in Milosevic's 4th house speaks not of inevitable behaviour, but of a deep ancestral wound,
transmitted and enacted through the immediate family. Milosevic's parents both committed suicide, a fact which
has no doubt exacerbated, or played into, the dark flavour of this conjunction. This man confronted death and
total abandonment in very early life, and survival cannot therefore ever be taken for granted. Chiron-Pluto is
also a generation marker, as is the Saturn-Uranus conjunction, and both occurred during, and reflected, the
chaos and horror of the Second World War.

Those children born with this pair of conjunctions know well, in their blood and bones, that life is not safe, and
that innocence and goodness are no guarantee for survival. This applies even if one has been born in a
relatively "safe" environment, outside the arena of war. Beyond the Saturnian skin of individuality, the collective
psyche ensures that all of us participate in and embody, on some level - dark or light - the times into which we
are born. That Milosevic is a deeply, savagely, perhaps irrevocably wounded man is beyond doubt. That he has
always had a choice in how to deal with that wound is also beyond doubt; and we all know how he chose to
express it. The savagery of the inner wound is proportionate to the wound he has inflicted on hundreds of
thousands of innocent people. Chiron, its pain inflamed by Pluto's savage fight for survival, here suggests a
profound conviction that only through the deaths of those perceived as destroyers can the individual's own
survival be ensured. Hopefully the readers of this article are not inclined to take Milosevic's path. He is easy to
despise and even hate. Yet we may be more like him than we think - in little ways which we deem unimportant
yet which reveal the painful struggle we experience in facing our own wounds honestly, and bearing them,
rather than finding someone else to whom we can feel superior and in whose suffering we can secretly take
delight.

Struggle and synthesis

The psychoanalyst Michael Balint3 wrote that, at the core of every illness, physical as well as psychological,
there is a fundamental wound - a struggle or inner conflict which seems insurmountable and which can generate
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bitterness and rage, and the loss of the will to live. While there is no implication in this statement of any
individual culpability, there is a suggestion that, if the conflict could be brought into consciousness, there is a
good chance that the course of many physical and psychological illnesses could be altered, or faced in a
different and more positive spirit.

If Chiron works against and overwhelms the Sun, the result can be depression, loss of confidence, and a sense
of permanent damage or wounding. One becomes cynical - as Goethe's Mephistopheles says, "I am the spirit of
negation." One expects failure, and because one expects it, one may very likely find it. A sense of being
victimised or scapegoated can be very intense; or one may project one's woundedness on others and victimise
or scapegoat them. If we fail to acknowledge this inner sense of bitterness and wounding, we may become
arrogant and bask in our greater spiritual achievement, looking down on those whom we deem to be less
evolved than ourselves. We may also become intolerant, and even cruel, toward those who inadvertently remind
us that we are hurting. And so the wound festers in the darkness.

Yet the Greco-Roman image of Chiron bearing the divine child on his back also tells us that these two
antithetical symbols can work together. Chiron is the child's teacher in myth - the one to whom is given the care
and education of the prince who will become king. This is a rich and hopeful image of the role our unhealable
hurts can play in the education of the individual we are in process of becoming. We may find a quality of
serenity and wisdom, which emerge from patience in the face of that which cannot be changed. We may also
develop toughness and grit, and lose the sentimentality that makes so many idealists so utterly ineffectual in
realising their dreams. We may also get a glimpse of bigger, deeper patterns - the slow, painful evolution of the
collective, of which we are a part, and with which we have to share responsibility. Collective disasters and
mistakes are not "their" fault - human messes belong to us all. We may revile Milosevic, and rightly so, yet each
time we sneer with contempt at any racial, religious, or social minority group, or slyly try to make life more
difficult for those individuals who remind us of our own imperfections, we are displaying a little bit of him
ourselves. I have known some very vociferously politically correct people who, when they retire behind the
closed doors of their own abodes, transform into little Adolfs and Slobos toward their partners and children. And
it may be wise to remember that collectives choose their leaders, and when these little bits of the maimed
scapegoater in each of us aggregate together, then we are inclined to put into power an individual who will do
the will of the wounded and wounder in all of us. Before we allocate the source of all present evil to figures like
Milosevic, we would do well to look in the mirror.

The melancholy which Chiron can generate, warmed by the light of the Sun, may also lead us to have depth of
thought and feeling, and stir in us a determination to make a contribution to the welfare of others. We may find a
different kind of compassion - not just for those who have been hurt in the same way as ourselves, but for
people whose experiences do not necessarily match our own, yet who merit compassion merely because we
are all human. If one has lost an eye, it is easy to feel sympathy for those half-blind like ourselves, and to hate
those who are fortunate enough to enjoy complete sight. The Sun working with Chiron can generate enough
generosity of spirit to recognise that all human beings suffer merely because they are alone and mortal, and that
one specific kind of wound is not more "special" or deserving of compassion than another. Those who are
loudest in their declarations of compassion toward the Kosovo Albanians may also be those who have little
compassion for their black or gay or Jewish or Pakistani neighbour, or who are prepared to kick the dog merely
to alleviate stress. The Sun working with Chiron cuts through such hypocrisy to the shared essence of the
human heart hidden within. Most importantly, the Sun working with Chiron can activate the will to live - not
merely on a blind organic or egotistical level, but because one's sense of individual purpose has combined with
a feeling of empathy for the slow and painful struggle toward the light which exists in every living thing.

The Sun and Chiron in direct aspect

Those with the Sun in direct aspect to Chiron may know on a profound level how the unfairness of life can
damage the spirit; and if they are able to take on the challenge of this combination of planets, they may also
dedicate their considerable energy and strength toward leaving the world a much better place than it was when
they entered it. There are many examples of "famous" people with Sun-Chiron aspects who illustrate this point;
any compendium of birth charts, such as Taeger's Internationales Horoskope Lexikon, is worth perusing to this
end. But rather than dwelling on the famous, I would like to briefly mention two people personally known to me,
both chart clients, and both with the Sun conjunct Chiron, who exemplify the very particular kind of pain Sun-
Chiron may suffer. One of these also exemplifies the kind of creative resolution which is possible.

The first, a woman with the Sun conjunct Chiron in Capricorn in the 9th house, experienced Chiron's wounding
first in the religious sphere (as might be expected with this 9th house placement), by being born into an
orthodox Jewish family many of whose members had died in the Holocaust. She had inherited a profound
bitterness and distrust of people and life, based only partly on her own experience, but also on an inherited
perception of being a scapegoat in a hostile world. This wound also encompassed a prevalent orthodox Jewish
attitude about the inferiority of women, exhibited in certain taboos about the body. An amalgamation of
experiences highlighting life's unfairness had created in this woman a deep poison and cynicism, and an
apparently immovable conviction that she was worth nothing. As a result, she victimised herself, through
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compulsive eating and a chain of destructive relationships. Identification with the scapegoat, the oppression of a
ferocious inner persecutor, and the sense of a flawed and inferior body, were the chief areas in which she
worked in psychotherapy over several years, occasionally "reporting back" to me for a chart update. It took a
very long time before she could fight her way out from under Chiron's injury, and experience the self-respect
and self-love of the Sun. Yet, clinging to the experience of victimisation can sometimes be a way of feeling
special. It is the mute language of a secret, unacknowledged, unconscious Sun - which, if expressed in more
honest ways, can not only provide healing for one's own own wounds, but can also generate a deep recognition
of the blindness and pain of a collective which turns on another collective to alleviate its own sense of
woundedness. This lady has travelled a long road, and her innate grit, toughness, and lack of sentimentality
about life have turned out to be not only among her greatest resources, but also one of the great strengths she
has begun to offer others suffering from eating disorders, similar to that she herself once suffered from.

The second example is a failed writer, a man who has all his life dreamed of publishing novels yet who
invariably "shoots himself in the foot" by producing unpublishable work. He has the Sun conjunct Chiron in Leo
in the 5th house. His writing style is very fine, and he has no discernible block in expressing his gift; but
everything he produces is always too long, too short, too dense, or too incomprehensible, or the themes he
chooses to write about are in some way politically incorrect and offensive to some specific group the publisher
has reason to fear. Behind these failures in the outer world lies self-sabotage, and behind the self-sabotage lies
a deep conviction that he is worth nothing, that he is stupid and inarticulate, and that if ever he does get a work
into print it will be mocked, criticised, and dismissed as worthless. To date, he has not been able to utilise the
insights a chart can offer, and has not fully recognised the real nature of his wound. The divine child within him
was wounded by an early social and educational environment that perceived his vivid imagination as
threatening and his intense self-preoccupation and self-expressiveness as selfish. His parents, so far as I can
see, cannot not be held particularly culpable; all parents blunder in one way or another, and these were no
worse than most and better than many. But the educational system in which he was raised did its best to turn
the divine child into a socially acceptable automaton. Many people experience such pressures and frustrations.
But those with Sun-Chiron in Leo may be particularly attuned to, and more readily injured by, the narrowness
and fear of originality so often found in collective educational institutions, which may unwittingly destroy the very
creative spirit they profess to encourage. Life, as Chiron knows well, can be very unfair.

Aspects between the Sun and Chiron are not guaranteed to offer a solution on a plate. Many individuals do not
find their way through. Yet, although profoundly challenging, these contacts may also convey a special sense of
how to bring wounds into consciousness, and how to teach this consciousness to others. Hard aspects between
the two no doubt helped to drive Jung (Sun in Leo out-of-sign square Chiron in Aries) into formulating a
psychology of the collective, and perhaps also helped to drive Dane Rudhyar (Sun in Aries opposition Chiron in
Libra) into making astrology human-centred, and a tool for insight and enlightenment, rather than mere
prognostication. No doubt both these men suffered, and both, on occasion, exhibited the less attractive sides of
the wounded Centaur; I would not have liked to have been married to either of them. But they turned their
wounds into creative power, and partook of the mythic Centaur's gift for teaching and healing. How did they get
there? How do we avoid becoming a mini-Milosevic, and choose instead the path which favours the will to live?

How do we get there?

The house and sign in which Chiron is placed tell us a great deal about where, and
how, life has wounded us. This is the place where, no matter how hard we seek to
find a specific object for our blame, we eventually discover that the blame lies in the
gap between ideal and reality, and in the inevitable flawedness of human nature. We
may need to rail against life, but if we are not to sink into a corrosive bitterness which
can ultimately make us distorted and ill, we need to move beyond this phase of
Chiron's rage into the quest for understanding which takes us beyond identifying with
the scapegoat and the victim, and beyond the attendant inclination to play the
scapegoater ourselves. This understanding may require us to dispense with previous
spiritual and moral convictions, and find a broader base from which to view life. We
may need to give up the idea that the good guys always ride white horses and the
bad guys black ones, and we may also have to accept the fact that sometimes very The Centaur Chiron
good, decent people suffer unfairly, and very unpleasant, nasty ones manage veryinstructing the young
nicely and die in their beds rich, comfortable, and well pleased with themselves.Achilles. Wall painting
Chiron and Walt Disney do not make good bedfellows. from the basilica of
Herculaneum Larousse
How do we find this kind of understanding? How do we learn to genuinely forgive and
tolerate, without that vastly superior turn-the-other-cheek smugness which masks deep unconscious resentment
and rage? Chiron needs the Sun for this task. The Sun has the power to affirm the individual's specialness and
lovability, and this alone can counteract the poison of self-pity. The house and sign in which the Sun is placed at
birth reflect what we need to become, if we wish to feel truly alive. If the Sun is in Aries in the 5th, and we are
busy being self-sacrificing and devoting our lives to others, then somewhere, something is not working, and a
deep disloyalty to self may encourage Chiron's bitterness, rather than his understanding. If the Sun is in
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Sagittarius in the 1st, and we are busy pretending we don't wish to be noticed by anyone, then somewhere,
something is not working. If the Sun is in the 10th in Taurus, and we claim we are uninterested in material
security and collective recognition of our talents, then somewhere, something is not working. If the Sun is in the
12th in Cancer and we are busy pretending we do not believe in any mystical or invisible dimension of life,
psychological or spiritual, then somewhere, something is not working. I believe we need to ask ourselves: Is the
Sun shining in my life? Am I myself? Or is a fear of loneliness or not belonging making me pretend to be what I
am not?

Equally, we may also need to face Chiron, and ask ourselves: What is the nature of my wound? How has life
hurt me, and whom do I secretly blame? What might I be doing to compensate, deny, indulge in, or project that
wound? Can I feel compassion for myself, or only rage and self-pity? Where do I feel scapegoated, and where
do I try to heal, or destroy, others in order to convince myself that I am not wounded? Where do I sabotage or
even destroy myself because of bitterness? In order for the Sun and Chiron to work together, we need to be
conscious of both. There is a profound and mysterious chemistry between these planets which, if it is working
for us rather than against us, seems to mobilise the life-force, not only for our own expression, but also for the
collective of which we are a part. Chiron's alienation and damage keep the Sun from becoming arrogant and
insensitive; the Sun's warmth and joy keep Chiron from despair. As with all chart factors, the degree to which
these dimensions of our own souls give of their best depends on how aware we are of their reality inside us.
This is not a cure for life. Life will still hurt us from time to time, in one way or another, and Chiron's wounds,
although we may make peace with them, inevitably rob us of our innocence. The will to live is not mobilised by a
belief that life is all roses, that all we need is love, and that some kind father-mother-god will reward us if we are
good. It is constellated by tougher stuff, and needs realism as well as faith and vision, if we are to exit feeling we
have done our best with the gift of life, however transient, which we have been given.

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